Philippa Gregory's Tudor Court 6-Book Boxed Set (43 page)

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I married him for Arthur, for my mother, for God, for our cause, and for myself. But in a very little while I have come to love him. It is impossible not to love such a sweet-hearted, energetic, good-natured boy as Harry in these first years of his reign. He has never known anything but admiration and kindness, he expects nothing less. He wakes happy every morning, filled with the confident expectation of a happy day. And, since he is king, and surrounded by courtiers and flatterers, he always has a happy day. When work troubles him or people come to him with disagreeable complaints he looks around for someone to take the bother of it away from him. In the
first few weeks it was his grandmother who commanded. Slowly, I make sure that it is to me that he hands the burdens of ruling the kingdom.

The Privy Councilors learn to come to me to ascertain what the king would think. It is easier for them to present a letter or a suggestion, if he has been prepared by me. The courtiers soon know that anything that encourages him to go away from me, anything that takes the country away from the alliance with Spain will displease me, and Harry does not like it when I frown. Men seeking advantage, advocates seeking help, petitioners seeking justice—all learn that the quickest way to a fair, prompt decision is to call first at the queen’s rooms and then wait for my introduction.

I never have to ask anyone to handle him with tact. Everyone knows that a request should come to him as it were fresh, for the first time. Everyone knows that the self-love of a young man is very new and very bright and should not be tarnished. Everyone takes a warning from the case of his grandmother who is finding herself put gently and implacably to one side, because she openly advises him, because she takes decisions without him, because once—foolishly—she scolded him. Harry is a king so careless that he will hand over the keys of his kingdom to anyone he trusts. The trick for me is to make sure that he trusts only me.

I make sure that I never blame him for not being Arthur. I taught myself—in the seven years of widowhood—that God’s will was done when He took Arthur from me, and there is no point in blaming those who survive when the best prince is dead. Arthur died with my promise in his ears and I think myself very lucky indeed that marriage to his brother is not a vow that I have to endure but one I can enjoy.

I like being queen. I like having pretty things and rich jewels and a lapdog, and assembling ladies-in-waiting whose company is a pleasure. I like paying María de Salinas the long debt of her wages and watching her order a dozen gowns and fall in love. I like writing to Lady Margaret Pole and summoning her to my court, falling into her arms and crying for joy to see her again, and having her promise that she will be with me. I like knowing that her discretion is absolute; she never says one word about Arthur. But I like it that she knows what this marriage has cost me and why I have done it. I like her watching me make Arthur’s England even though it is Harry on the throne.

The first month of marriage is nothing for Harry but a round of parties, feasts, hunts, outings, pleasure trips, boating trips, plays, and tournaments. Harry is like a boy who has been locked up in a schoolroom for too
long and is suddenly given a summer holiday. The world is so filled with amusement for him that the least experience gives him great pleasure. He loves to hunt—and he had never been allowed fast horses before. He loves to joust and his father and grandmother had never even allowed him in the lists. He loves the company of men of the world who carefully adapt their conversation and their amusements to divert him. He loves the company of women but—thank God—his childlike devotion to me holds him firm. He likes to talk to pretty women, play cards with them, watch them dance and reward them with great prizes for petty feats—but always he glances towards me to see that I approve. Always he stays at my side, looking down at me from his greater height with a gaze of such devotion that I can’t help but be loving towards him for what he brings me and in a very little while, I can’t help but love him for himself.

He has surrounded himself with a court of young men and women who are such a contrast to his father’s court that they demonstrate by their very being that everything has changed. His father’s court was filled with old men, men who had been through hard times together, some of them battle-hardened; all of them had lost and regained their lands at least once. Harry’s court is filled with men who have never known hardship, never been tested.

I have made a point of saying nothing to criticize either him or the group of wild young men that gather around him. They call themselves the “Minions” and they encourage each other in mad bets and jests all the day and—according to gossip—half the night too. Harry was kept so quiet and so close for all his childhood that I think it natural he should long to run wild now, and that he should love the young men who boast of drinking bouts and fights, and chases and attacks, and girls who they seduce, and fathers who pursue them with cudgels. His best friend is William Compton, the two go about with their arms around each other’s shoulders as if ready to dance or braced for a fight for half the day. There is no harm in William, he is as great a fool as the rest of the court, he loves Harry as a comrade, and he has a mock-adoration of me that makes us all laugh. Half of the Minions pretend to be in love with me and I let them dedicate verses and sing songs to me and I make sure that Harry always knows that his songs and poems are the best.

The older members of the court disapprove and have made stern criticisms of the king’s boisterous lads, but I say nothing. When the councilors come to me with complaints I say that the king is a young man and youth
will have its way. There is no great harm in any one of the comrades; when they are not drinking, they are sweet young men.

One or two, like the Duke of Buckingham who greeted me long ago, or the young Thomas Howard, are fine young men who would be an ornament to any court. My mother would have liked them. But when the lads are deep in their cups they are noisy and rowdy and excitable as young men always are and when they are sober they talk nonsense. I look at them with my mother’s eyes and I know that they are the boys who will become the officers in our army. When we go to war their energy and their courage is just what we will need. The noisiest, most disruptive young men in peacetime are exactly the leaders I will need in time of war.

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Lady Margaret, the king’s grandmother, having buried a husband or two, a daughter-in-law, a grandson and finally her own precious prince, was a little weary of fighting for her place in the world and Catalina was careful not to provoke her old enemy into open warfare. Thanks to Catalina’s discretion, the rivalry between the two women was not played overtly—anyone hoping to see Lady Margaret abuse her granddaughter-in-law as she had insulted her son’s wife was disappointed. Catalina slid away from conflict.

When Lady Margaret tried to claim precedence by arriving at the dining hall door a few footsteps before Catalina, a Princess of the Blood, an Infanta of Spain and now Queen of England, Catalina stepped back at once and gave way to her with such an air of generosity that everyone remarked on the pretty behavior of the new queen. Catalina had a way of ushering the older woman before her that absolutely denied all rules of precedence and instead somehow emphasized Lady Margaret’s ungainly gallop to beat her granddaughter-in-law to the high table. They also saw Catalina pointedly step back, and everyone remarked on the grace and generosity of the younger woman.

The death of Lady Margaret’s son, King Henry, had hit the old lady hard. It was not so much that she had lost a beloved child; it was more that she had lost a cause. In his absence she could hardly summon the energy to force the Privy Councilors to report to her before going to the king’s rooms. Harry’s joyful excusing of his father’s debts and freeing of his father’s prisoners she took as an insult to his father’s memory and to her own rule. The sudden leap of the court into youth and freedom and playfulness made her feel old and bad-tempered. She, who had once
been the commander of the court and the maker of the rules, was left to one side. Her opinion no longer mattered. The great book by which all court events must be governed had been written by her; but suddenly, they were celebrating events that were not in her book, they invented pastimes and activities, and she was not consulted.

She blamed Catalina for all the changes she most disliked, and Catalina smiled very sweetly and continued to encourage the young king to hunt and to dance and to stay up late at night. The old lady grumbled to her ladies that the queen was a giddy, vain thing and would lead the prince to disaster. Insultingly, she even remarked that it was no wonder Arthur had died, if this was the way that the Spanish girl thought a royal household should be run.

Lady Margaret Pole remonstrated with her old acquaintance as tactfully as she could. “My lady, the queen has a merry court but she never does anything against the dignity of the throne. Indeed, without her, the court would be far wilder. It is the king who insists on one pleasure after another. It is the queen who gives this court its manners. The young men adore her and nobody drinks or misbehaves before her.”

“It is the queen whom I blame,” the old woman said crossly. “Princess Eleanor would never have behaved like this. Princess Eleanor would have been housed in my rooms, and the place would have run by my rules.”

Tactfully, Catalina heard nothing, not even when people came to her and repeated the slanders. Catalina simply ignored her grandmother-in-law and the constant stream of her criticism. She could have done nothing that would irritate her more.

It was the late hours that the court now kept that were the old lady’s greatest complaint. Increasingly, she had to wait and wait for dinner to be served. She would complain that it was so late at night that the servants would not be finished before dawn, and then she would retire before the court had even finished their dinner.

“You keep late hours,” she told Harry. “It is foolish. You need your sleep. You are only a boy; you should not be roistering all night. I cannot keep hours like this, and it is a waste of candles.”

“Yes, but my lady grandmother, you are nearly seventy years old,” he said patiently. “Of course you should have your rest. You shall retire whenever you wish. Catalina and I are only young. It is natural for us to want to stay up late. We like amusement.”

“She should be resting. She has to conceive an heir,” Lady Margaret said irritably. “She’s not going to do that bobbing about in a dance with a bunch of featherheads. Masking every night. Whoever heard of such a thing? And who is to pay for all this?”

“We’ve been married less than a month!” he exclaimed, a little irritated. “These are our wedding celebrations. I think we can enjoy good pastimes and keep a merry court. I like to dance.”

“You act as if there was no end to money,” she snapped. “How much has this dinner cost you? And last night’s? The strewing herbs alone must cost a fortune. And the musicians? This is a country that has to hoard its wealth, it cannot afford a spendthrift king. It is not the English way to have a popinjay on the throne, a court of mummers.”

Harry flushed. He was about to make a sharp retort.

“The king is no spendthrift,” Catalina intervened quickly. “This is just part of the wedding festivities. Your son, the late king, always thought that there should be a merry court. He thought that people should know that the court was wealthy and gay. King Harry is only following in the footsteps of his wise father.”

“His father was not a young fool under the thumb of his foreign wife!” the old lady said spitefully.

Catalina’s eyes widened slightly and she put her hand on Harry’s sleeve to keep him silent. “I am his partner and his helpmeet, as God has bidden me,” she said gently. “As I am sure you would want me to be.”

The old lady grunted. “I hear you claim to be more than that,” she began.

The two young people waited. Catalina could feel Harry shift restlessly under the gentle pressure of her hand.

“I hear that your father is to recall his ambassador. Am I right?” She glared at them both. “Presumably he does not need an ambassador now. The King of England’s own wife is in the pay and train of Spain. The King of England’s own wife is to be the Spanish ambassador. How can that be?”

“My lady grandmother—” Harry burst out; but Catalina was sweetly calm.

“I am a princess of Spain. Of course I would represent the country of my birth to my country by marriage. I am proud to be able to do such a thing. Of course I will tell my father that his beloved son, my
husband, is well, that our kingdom is prosperous. Of course I will tell my husband that my loving father wants to support him in war and peace.”

“When we go to war—” Harry began.

“War?” the old lady demanded, her face darkening. “Why should we go to war? We have no quarrel with France. It is only her father who wants war with France, no one else. Tell me that not even you will be such a fool as to take us into war to fight for the Spanish! What are you now? Their errand boy? Their vassal?”

“The King of France is a danger to us all!” Harry stormed. “And the glory of England has always been—”

“I am sure My Lady the King’s Grandmother did not mean to disagree with you, sire,” Catalina said sweetly. “These are changing times. We cannot expect older people always to understand when things change so quickly.”

“I’m not quite in my dotage yet!” the old woman flared. “And I know danger when I see it. And I know divided loyalties when I see them. And I know a Spanish spy—”

“You are a most treasured advisor,” Catalina assured her. “And my lord the king and I are always glad of your advice. Aren’t we, Harry?”

He was still angry. “Agincourt was—”

“I’m tired,” the old woman said. “And you twist and twist things about. I’m going to my room.”